In the Arms of the Angel
by Chris ShadowMoon
Summary: A songfic one-shot, the song is 'Angel' by Sarah McLachlin. A certain girl is singing of her loss. Of course, the late arrival of a stranger may be able to help that. Guess the singer by the end! :P Flamers will be laughed at!


**In the Arms of the Angel**

**Authors Note- This is a one-shot that I can't stop thinking about! I don't know how this will turn out, but I want to do it because it'll probably be short. **

**I DO NOT OWN RANMA**

**I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO 'ANGEL' (That's Sarah McLachlin, just so you know)**

**One-shot 'In the Arms of the Angel'**

Ten years since they'd lived in Nerima

Five years since he proposed to her.

Three years since they'd seen anyone from Nerima

One year since He went missing.

The sky outside was pouring, coming down in buckets. '_Perfect, a bleak mood to match my bleak heart'_ she thought. He had said he'd return, come back to her. Instead, he hadn't been seen in nearly a year, leaving a broken promise, and a shattered heart.

"Ranma…" she whispered, nearly lost in memories of old.

Right now, she was dressed up in one of her nice black dresses, at a local karaoke bar. She was on stage, slowly flipping through the music selections, looking for a song that would give her feelings life, the perfect song for the melancholy kept in her soul, the pain in her heart.

She finally settled on a song and selected it, walking over to the stool and sitting down, grasping the microphone off the stand in front of her. The crowd applauded, she'd become something of a legend at the bar, because of both her skill in singing and her frequency there. She sang her feelings there many times in the last year.

A slow, sad piano tune started up, and another small round of applause started up before quickly dying off, people wanting to listen to the words she attached to her heartache.

She knew the song well. It was a favorite of hers, just for its pure beauty combined with its melancholy. She was able to sing it well, mostly in part of a lot of practicing. This would be her first time to sing it in public, though.

She went through the motions, barely even registering herself singing. She'd practiced it so many times she knew every word, every crescendo and every pause.

"_Spend all your time waiting for that second chance, for the break that will make it OK."_

It'd been eight years ago that he'd faced and defeated Saffron, eight years since he'd given up his art, and seven since he'd found a way out of all the engagements honorably. She hadn't been the only one of the fiancées to chase after him, but she had been the only one to change tactics.

"_There's always some reason to feel not good enough, and it's hard at the end of the day."_

She gave him something he wanted, something he'd desperately needed, a friend, and in return, he slowly fell in love with her, not a story-book romance like she'd planned, but a romance none the less. Five years ago, she'd been shocked when he'd worked up the nerve and proposed to her, right in front of her crowd.

_"I need some distraction or a beautiful release; memories seep from my veins."_

Once he'd given up her art, she had as well. Instead, she'd become a singer, and he would occasionally join her, in either form. She'd had many chances to go big, but she'd turned them down. They didn't even have a family yet, and she wasn't interested in becoming world famous.

_"Let me be empty and weightless and maybe, I'll find some peace tonight."_

One year ago, he told her that something had come up, that he'd return to her when he was done. He'd captured her in one last kiss before boarding the plane, and disappearing off the face of the planet. Every night she'd sleep, clinging to the desperate hope that she'd wake up and he'd be next to her. Every morning she'd wake up to more disappointments and heartaches.

Her voice picked up intensity, pouring all of her sadness, all of her heartache, into the song, which transferred to the audience. Over half the building was already crying.

_"In the arms of the Angel far away from here, from this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear."_

Reciently, she'd began to give up hope. She hated herself for that, for betraying him and everything he meant, but she couldn't help it. She'd slowly slipped into depression, the pain of a shattered heart slowly sapping her will to live. She kept going, still desperately clinging to her dead hope.

_"You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie. You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here."_

A friend of hers, a foreigner named Jennifer, had been a life saver. Without her, she'd suspected that she would have killed herself long ago. Like her, Jennifer had been a friend of Ranma's. It was thanks to Jennifer's boyfriend that Jennifer was able to persevere through her depression, and help her keep her sanity through the months.

Her voice dropped, starting the second verse, a verse that held a special meaning in her mind. It reminded her of everything that she left in Nerima, everything in Tokyo. They'd moved to Kyoto after leaving Tokyo, hoping to blend into the giant crowds that made up the ancient capital. It'd worked.

_"So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn, there's vultures and thieves at your back."_

The bartender stopped serving up another drink half way through, captured by the underlying emotions in the song. All around the karaoke bar, the people who'd not been listening were silent, listening to her own ways of expressing her emotions.

_"The storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies, that you make up for all that you lack."_

The door in the back wall opened, but she was too lost in her music, her heartache to care. It was just another person escaping from the rain, another person entering a set of four walls to listen to her depression put into words, a near-tangible form.

_"It don't make no difference, escaping one last time. It's easier to believe."_

An umbrella was cast aside, a hat removed onto the hat rack. The crowd was muttering, becoming restless. To her, they didn't matter; it was just her and her music on stage. Nobody else mattered. The crowd parted like the Red Sea to Moses, making a pathway to the stage. Her eyes were closed, she never saw it.

_"In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness, that brings me to my knees."_

She never saw the stranger walk over to the amplifier she was connected to, or the same stranger plug in another microphone. She did, however, sense another person walk closer to her. She would have been put off when the person, obviously a woman, started to sing, her voice falling into harmony with the strangers.

The music picked up again, still a bittersweet tune, returning to the refrain.

_"In the arms of the Angel far away from here, from this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear"_

She trailed off, letting the other voice continue the song. Only one voice ever had the ability to fall into harmony with her own. She turned to look, her eyes locking with vibrant pools of blue, which held an undying sadness, yet warmth that made her want to stare, never looking away, just to ensure herself that they're real. Red hair hung around her eyes, dotted with mud from the falling rain.

_"You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie. In the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here"_

The stranger, who wasn't such a stranger, moved over and wrapped her arms around her, a feeling that she'd missed for so long. They managed to have a single microphone between the two of them, both singing the final line of the song, their voices holding much more warmth, much less heartache, than the song had started with.

_"You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here."_

As the song finished, tears were streaming out of every eye in the building, singers and audience alike. The microphones dropped, making a thud noise that echoed out of the speakers, but neither of the two on stage cared. Nor did they care when the audience cheered. They only cared that they were holding each other again after so long.

"Ran-chan…" she whispered.

"Ucchan…" responded Ranma at the same time.

Ukyo Kuonji Saotome buried her face in the shoulder of her sometimes-husband-sometimes-wife, shedding the tears of joy she'd longed to shed for months. The promise was unbroken, her heart repaired.

**END**

**Call me pathetic, call me shameless, but I was actually very close to crying as I wrote this… then again, I was also listening to 'In the Arms of the Angel' as I wrote it, so you chose. **


End file.
